But what to Keep Iterating on?

Keep Iterating is certainly downstream of you having figured out what to iterate on. I more or less hinted at this on The World is Non-linear. In the writing I mentioned I did not have enough time to write about it. I am following up on it now.

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It is very much true that choosing what to work on is more important than working on the thing itself. Don’t get me wrong, whatever one chooses to work on, it seems to me that working hard at it is still very important. But my mental model is to think about this as traveling—you may walk 10,000 miles in a given direction and get really far but that will not matter if you are walking towards the “wrong” direction. Then the problem becomes, how do you figure out the right direction?

I need to get a few things out of the way before grappling with this:

1. There is certainly a level of bias in answering this question given that ultimately what “right direction” means will be dependent on what someone believes makes an endeavor worthwhile undertaking. My answer will be based on what I believe makes something meaningful undertaking.
2. I am 22 and have only been seriously wrestling with this problem for the last 4 years. That said, my own wrestling with this has taken me from Biology to Chemical Engineering to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ¹. While there are similarities, these fields are very different from each other. I think I have undergone more pivots than most people my age trying to figure out “what to work on.”
3. Again, I am 22 and what I think now may change in the future depending on what I learn as I pursue what I believe.

With that out of the way then, how do you figure out the right direction?

I posit working in the right direction is work that

1. feels like play to you
2. you have a natural aptitude for it
3. is currently important or has the potential to become important

Work that feels like play to you:

No one will win you at being you. The way you escape competition is by authenticity. You have to be somewhat self-aware to know what type of work feels like play to you. I think the best measure for this is work that makes you loose track of time. If you are consistently able to get into “the zone” while doing some type of work, I thing that is a good sign for the right direction of work.

Work that you have a natural aptitude for it:

Do you like math? Do you like coding? If something feels like an extension of you but not necessarily for others, that may mean you have an aptitude for it. For instance, in my biology and chemical engineering classes I noticed most people did not like coding whereas I had a kick from it. But then at the same time, in CS and electrical engineering classes, I noticed a lot of people did not like much the physical aspect of things. This led me to try to find something that had both physics and computer science.

Like the previous point, recognizing this requires self-awareness and also trying to do different things and seeing how natural they come to you.

Work that is currently important or has the potential to become important:

This one is perhaps the hardest to recognize given that it depends mainly on the outside world. That said, I really like Paul Graham’s heuristic on this:

Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.

I have made the mistake several times of pursuing something because I hear a big name in the field say “X will be the future and reinvent the world.” As cliché as it sounds, sometimes your heart and curiosity just knows better ².

Ultimately though, you can never be sure if what you are working is the right thing. Ultimately, you will have to take the leap of faith. Sometimes You Just Have to Compute. Leap of Faith

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Scattered chunks of wisdom I have found that have more or less shaped how I think about what to work on:

From How to Do Great Work by Paul Graham:

The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.

 

There’s a kind of excited curiosity that’s both the engine and the rudder of great work. It will not only drive you, but if you let it have its way, will also show you what to work on.

What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people? That’s what you’re looking for.

 

Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could.

 

What should you do if you’re young and ambitious but don’t know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action. But there is no systematic procedure you can follow. When you read biographies of people who’ve done great work, it’s remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.

 

But fields aren’t people; you don’t owe them any loyalty. If in the course of working on one thing you discover another that’s more exciting, don’t be afraid to switch. (emphasis mine)

 

There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you’re trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people’s wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you’ll be proof against all of them. If you’re interested, you’re not astray.

From Peter Thiel on markets, technology, and education:

this is the bar pic.twitter.com/mElxvjekoe

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) March 14, 2025

Value substance more than status. Go long substance, go short status.

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